Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) has asked Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov to initiate the expatriation procedure for MP Andriy Artemenko via the State Migration Service of Ukraine, Spokesperson of Prosecutor General Larysa Sarhan has reported.
“The State Migration Service could ask the Ukrainian president to terminate Ukrainian citizenship of MP Artemenko after receiving the materials from the Prosecutor General’s Office,” Sarhan wrote on her Facebook page on Friday.
She said that during the investigation of a crime committed in violation of Article 111 of the Criminal Code (high treason) enough documents pointing that Artemenko was admitted to citizenship of Canada and has the passport of Canadian citizen.
Earlier independent MP of Ukraine Artemenko said that he rejected the Canadian ID, but he remained Canadian citizen.
“I do not have passports of other countries. I have a passport of Ukraine. I had a passport of Canada, which I was to suspend in 24 in line with Ukrainian legislation. I did it. I did it in public in 2014 before the election,” he said in an interview with KP in Ukraine publication.
As reported, in February 2017 the New York City-based daily newspaper The New York Times reported that Artemenko presented his plan for ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the U.S. presidential administration. Under the plan, a referendum would be held on the question of leasing Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula to the Russian Federation from 50 to 100 years, as well as the withdrawal of Russian occupation forces in eastern Ukraine.
Prosecutors investigate criminal proceedings against Artemenko for anti-state actions in cooperation with the Russian Federation.
On February 20, Oleh Liashko’s Radical Party decided to expel deputy Artemenko from its team.
Artemenko is the initiator of the draft law on introducing amendments to the law on citizenship of Ukraine regarding dual citizenship.
Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yuriy Lutsenko said that Artemenko had documented to the prosecutor’s office that he has Canadian citizenship, in addition to Ukrainian citizenship: “He said at one of the interrogations that he was a Canadian citizen.” Surprisingly, on the investigator’s request to confirm this, he said: “Of course, the next time I’ll bring the documents.” At the same time, Lutsenko showed journalists a copy of the Canadian passport of the parliamentarian.
